Free Republic

Much of the difficulty Republicans are experiencing in passing tax reform is self-inflicted. They've fallen into a trap of the left by trying to ensure that the much-needed reforms to our outdated and punitive tax code are "revenue-neutral" -- meaning the government continues to take just as much out of the economy in taxes going forward. It's all well and good to avoid increasing the debt, but it's irresponsible to not even try accomplishing this with spending cuts. Deficit neutrality doesn't prohibit all increases in revenue through reform, but it emphasizes the need to address Washington's spending addiction through cuts...

A New Jersey mom says she posted her 3-year-old son's heart surgery bill online to show how potential changes in the health care law could drastically increase out-of-pocket costs for those with life-threatening conditions.

Just months after being slimed by President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, Mitt Romney supporter and businessman Frank VanderSloot was informed that he was going to be audited not only by the Internal Revenue Service, but by the Labor Department as well. VanderSloot’s saga was told by columnist Kimberley Strassel in the Wall Street Journal last July. In April 2012, VanderSloot, who served as the national co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential finance committee, was one of eight Romney backers to be defamed as ”wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records” in a post on the Obama campaign’s website. The post, entitled “Behind the...

<p>The Kansas Chamber of Commerce strives to improve the state’s economic climate and to make it more competitive for the benefit of every Kansas business and citizen.</p> <p>The state legislature’s recent decision to raise income taxes by $1.2 billion will hurt every working Kansan and small business. It will damage the long-term trajectory of our state. It will pummel pocketbooks and discourage job creators. Additionally, the retroactive nature of these regressive taxes will cause a great deal of pain, crippling our state’s economy and putting us at a competitive disadvantage.</p>

"What's the matter with Kansas?" In 2004, Thomas Frank asked the question fearing a "right-wing class war grown so powerful" that it induced "the common people" to vote against their own interests. Now, 13 years later, pundits are asking the same question—but under drastically different circumstances.

The media has hyper-obsessed over the Kansas tax hike this year and has sold this as a repudiation of "supply side economics." But the real story in the states has been the catastrophic effects of "tax and spend" fiscal policy in Illinois. Last week Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner continued his three-year standoff with House Speaker for Life Mike Madigan's liberal Democratic machine over a $5 billion annual income-tax hike. The Democrats have dug in their heels. Anyone who thinks this soak-the-rich scheme will solve Illinois' long-term budget crisis should have their head examined. Illinois already ranks in the top three...

On Friday’s Morning Joe, MSNBC panelist Donny Deutsch pushed the typical liberal “tax cuts for the rich” narrative as he slammed the Republican health care reform bill: "The other side of the aisle will call this as a redistribution of wealth. Obviously, parties are given to hyperbole, but the reality according to the Center [for] Tax Policy is that 90 percent of the benefits in this plan go to families making $700,000 a year or more, the one percent. That is a fiscal reality." He demanded of Senator Rand Paul (R-KY): "How do you explain that to some of the...

For the sake of this argument, let's divide the population into three groups. The first group consists of children, dependents, retirees, and those who manage to live off government handouts like disability, food stamps, etc. This group does not earn enough income to contribute to income taxes.

WASHINGTON - Exxon Mobil Corp. and other large oil companies are backing a carbon tax proposal put forward earlier this year by a group of former Republican leaders including James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state and a Houston attorney. The Climate Leadership Coalition, a group that includes Baker, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and former Secretary of State George Shultz, announced a list of "founding members" Tuesday that includes Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell, Total, General Motors and Johnson & Johnson. "We support @TheCLCouncil as a founding member and are working to support its policy development process," Exxon...

Someone hired a CPA to do their taxes. Lots of schedules and attachments. Homeowners, professional person with lots of business expenses, and a small business owner. Late getting it all together, took everything to CPA in early April. CPA's staff prepares the return, CPA reviews it with the people, and the return gets sent to the IRS. (Paper return because some smartass tried to run an identity theft on them in January and file a false return, which to their credit the IRS caught and sent a letter to the people letting them know what happened.) Anyway last week the...

Texas is a highway state. This reality stems from the need to meet the mobility demands of both sprawling metropolitan regions and vast rural areas.Paying for the state's massive system of highways has always been a challenge, however. Estimates from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) put the state's highway expansion and maintenance needs alone at nearly $383 billion by 2040. Existing public funding, projected to be $70 billion over the next decade, will not be able to cover that cost without unprecedented funding increases after 2026.While Texans are clearly amenable to paying for better roads — two recent state...

The wife of a gunman who shot and wounded a top Republican congressman and several others says her husband went to Washington, D.C. because he wanted to work on tax policy. Sue Hodgkinson spoke to reporters Thursday outside her Illinois home. She says she didn't know a lot about what her husband, 66-year-old James Hodgkinson, did between January and March because she was busy with her job at a tax firm. But he sold items from his businesses and told her he was going to Washington. She learned about the shootings while at work Wednesday during a telephone call from...

Want proof taxes can actually go down? In the last three years, nine states have eliminated or lowered their estate taxes, mostly by raising exemptions. And more reductions are coming. Minnesota lawmakers recently raised the state’s estate-tax exemption to $2.1 million retroactive to January, and the exemption will rise to $2.4 million next year. Maryland will raise its $3 million exemption to $4 million next year. New Jersey’s exemption, which used to rank last at $675,000 per person, rose to $2 million per person this year. Next year New Jersey is scheduled to eliminate its estate tax altogether, joining about...

But since the tax took effect, those costs have only risen as gun violence in the city has surged. And the tax has apparently brought in much less than city leaders projected it would. “How much data do you need?” asked Dave Workman, senior editor of TheGunMag.com and member of the Second Amendment Foundation. “The data says the law has failed to prevent what they promised it would prevent.” [Snip] Seattle City Councilman Tim Burgess introduced the tax in 2015. It puts a $25 tax on every firearm sold in the city and up to 5 cents per round of...

Of 65 public comments over more than two hours, only a handful were against the income tax. At a public hearing on a proposed income tax on high earnings at Seattle City Council chambers Wednesday night, a near-unanimous consensus emerged from the sometimes soaring, sometimes stammering oratory: pass it. After a presentation from a council central staffer, the council’s Affordable Housing, Neighborhoods and Finance Committee heard from 65 commenters in total. Of these, only a handful spoke against the measure. I counted three. One identified himself as a Republican, another as a libertarian before saying that “taxation is theft,” and...

Study seeks 'more complete and nuanced understanding of climate change denial'! The National Science Foundation is funding a doctoral dissertation on "climate change denial." The University of Kansas was awarded $12,000 for the research, which began on June 1. The research seeks to find a "more complete and nuanced understanding" of individuals who are skeptical that human beings cause climate change. The dissertation focuses on two parishes outside of New Orleans, along the Mississippi River, and claims that residents who work in the oil industry "exploit the local environment." "The study will investigate residents' attitudes on climate change and assess...

Now that the long Memorial Day holiday is over and legislators and the governor have returned from their road trips, we hope they have a better sense of the condition of highways around the state and a renewed sense of urgency on the need for upgrades and repairs. The first order of business, it would seem to us, is to come to some agreement on a state transportation budget for the next two years. Hopefully, hopefully, when that is done they will also take a longer-term view of Wisconsin’s highway construction needs and how best they should be met —...

Hodgkinson had a history of violence that did not rise to the level to prohibit him from legally owning a firearm. He was the foster father of at least two girls. The first, Wanda Ashley Stock, 17, committed suicide in 1996 by pouring gasoline on herself and setting herself on fire after a few months of living with the Hodgkinsons, the Belleville News-Democrat reports. The Hodgkinsons gave an interview to the paper after her suicide, calling her a “very practical, level-headed girl.”

CARSON CITY — A Carson City district court judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss a lawsuit brought by liquor distributors against the Department of Taxation over the distribution of recreational marijuana to pot dispensaries. Judge James Wilson said in rejecting the motion that factual disputes need to be heard in an all-day hearing set for Monday. One of those disputes involves the Tax Department’s intervention in a licensing process by liquor distributors in Clark County who were seeking to participate in the distribution process. The decision could delay the start of recreational marijuana sales originally set for July 1 via...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s grand plan to spend $1 trillion over the next 10 years on highways and other infrastructure improvements faces a formidable roadblock in Congress and state legislatures. There’s agreement the investment is badly needed to improve the nation’s sagging infrastructure but how to cover the huge expense is the point of tension. Trump would use $200 billion in public funds to generate $800 billion in private money under a partnership program that would finance government bonds and also return a profit to private companies through interstate tolls and other user fees. To do that, Congress would...